Persephone? A not-so-melodic voice cut through my charmed thoughts. Persephone, can you hear me?
Not now! You’re ruining it!
Ruining what? He sounded bemused.
The pretty lights and the beautiful music. It’s… the most incredible thing I’ve ever heard. I watched the lights flow balletically through the air, moving in time to the slow, bittersweet song. I’d appreciate it if you could get out of my head so I can keep on enjoying it. Why are you in my head, anyway? Weirdly, I wasn’t upset that Leviathan had made contact.
The music is why I came. Your fascination with it. His tone carried a hint of concern, which annoyed me.
Oh, so I can’t be happy or angry or sad without you showing up unannounced? Are there any emotions I can feel without you butting in?
He chuckled softly. Your emotions are erratic. That is why I am here. There is something amiss. His laughter faded. Tell me about the lights and music.
I don’t know. They just appeared, but I’ve seen them before—they’re these gaseous, floaty orbs, a bit like small, colorful comets. There wasn’t any music last time, though, I explained. I wished he’d buzz off so I could hear the music properly without him taking up headspace.
Ah… A note of surprise punctuated the sound.
I rolled my eyes. Ah? What does that mean?
They sound like Will-o’-the-Wisps. I have heard of them, but they have never interested me enough to warrant my full attention. He paused. Now, however… Perhaps they have earned my curiosity.
I tried to hide my excitement in case Nathan noticed, but I quickly realized he was too transfixed by the lights to even remember that I was here. The hiding pixies had come out to slap some sense into him, the one in his hair tugging on his locks, but he didn’t pay them any mind. I didn’t blame him. Who would want to be distracted from such a remarkable display? I definitely didn’t, but I had a nuisance in my noggin that wouldn’t go away until he’d done whatever it was he’d come to do, and I was anxious to return to the light show.
Are you going to leave me hanging? I asked.
He laughed. You know I would never do that, my Persephone. Will-o’-the-Wisps are elemental spirits. The lights themselves are candles of the dead. The spirits hold the candles, and they are the ones who sing, but you cannot see the bearers with the naked eye. They may appear to some as hazy figures. I am surprised you are not able to see them. He made a sound, as though he was slightly disappointed by this fact.
Sorry that I’m not some almighty Mother of Monsters, I spat, becoming more and more frustrated by his voice. It was like hearing three songs at once, all the notes clamoring in my head and making my nerves bristle. Besides, last time we’d spoken, he’d told me about a Door to Nowhere, not elemental spirits or wisps. It sounded like he was making it up as he went along, trying to keep my attention.
Anyway, that is by the by, Leviathan continued. The candles of the dead and the song of the spirits hypnotize people in order to lead them astray. Usually, it is to lead them from safe paths into bogs and marshland, to claim more spirits for themselves. However, it seems they have diversified.
“Will you not listen to us?” whispered a soft voice, ethereal and sad. Almost as if they were pleading with me. “Please, hear our song. We sing it for you.”
I nodded slowly. “I’m listening.” The moment I spoke, the connection severed and Leviathan vamoosed out of my head, just as I’d wanted. Now, I could give all of my focus to the hypnotic wisps, just as they wanted. I’d come all this way; the least I could do was listen.
“Will you follow us, sweet lady?” the voice whispered again, gentle and warm. “Will you come to us? We can sing to you there. We sing for you.”
I smiled shyly. “For me?”
“For me?” Nathan parroted.
“Only for you. Will you follow us?” The lights floated toward the dense black of the new Repository sphere, and my feet did the talking. I stepped forward automatically, eager to go wherever the Wisps were going. Beside me, Nathan did the same.
“I’ll follow,” I replied dreamily, desperate not to lose sight of them.
I’d walked a few paces when Boudicca put her fingers to her lips and gave the loudest whistle my eardrums had ever heard. En masse, the pixies surged toward the Wisps. The pixies’ pulsating lights burned with blinding brightness for a few seconds, the sudden ferocity chasing the Wisps away down the central walkway of the sphere and into the darkness below. The moment they disappeared, taking their heartbreaking song with them, I snapped out of whatever trance they’d put me in. It was like waking up after a long, strange dream, and finding that you’d sleepwalked into the kitchen for no reason.
I blinked. “Nathan? Are you okay?”
“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” he replied, concerned. “Did they just… hypnotize us?”
I nodded. “And the pixies saved our behinds.” The pieces were slowly making sense. “I’ve got a feeling that, if we’d followed them, we’d have ended up in the same situation as the missing magicals. That’s why there were no signs of a struggle: no one did struggle. They came here of their own accord, because of the Will-o’-the-Wisps.”
Nathan’s face was marginally visible in the light of the glowing pixies who’d come back to roost. “Pardon?”
“They’re Will-o’-the-Wisps,” I said, fixing him with a stern gaze. Weren’t we almost trapped like everyone else, and wasn’t he supposed to be a genius in this subject? “Do you know anything about them?”
“Yes. They are thought to be controlled by…” He
